July 4, 2014

Independence Day

"I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation."

- Patriot Abigail Adams, 1776

"Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn't. Nobody ever thought that that's what it meant. Nobody ever voted for that. If the current society wants to outlaw discrimination by sex, hey we have things called legislatures, and they enact things called laws."

- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, 2011

While the Founders would obviously have no problem with discrimination against women, how many truly believe they'd be in agreement that corporations were people who had religious beliefs that allow them to discriminate against a class of citizens and be exempt from duly passed laws?

Certainly the five Catholic, male judges on the Roberts Court believe that it's perfectly fine for corporations to hold others (others of course being women) hostage to their own particular religious views.

And while the media and supporters got the Supreme Court ruling in the Hobby Lobby case wrong by insisting that it was a "narrow" ruling, it only took a day for that to be proven false and for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to be correct (in calling it a "decision of startling breadth"):

In fact, it only took a day for the Court’s “narrow” decision to start to crack open. On Tuesday, the Court indicated that its ruling applies to for-profit employers who object to all twenty forms of birth control included in the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate, not just the four methods at issue in the two cases decided on Monday.

In light of its ruling on Hobby Lobby and a related suit, the Supreme Court ordered three appeals courts to reconsider cases in which they had rejected challenges from corporations that object to providing insurance that covers any contraceptive services at all.

[snip]

It’s bad enough that the Court privileged the belief that IUDs and emergency contraceptives induce abortion over the scientific evidence that clearly says otherwise. With Tuesday’s orders, the conservative majority has effectively endorsed the idea that religious objections to insurance that covers any form of preventative healthcare for women have merit.

Just as bad, these males on the court actually lied about their ruling.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing in a dissent on Thursday (signed by all the women on the court), noted, “Those who are bound by our decisions usually believe they can take us at our word. Not so today.”

Sotomayor was referencing that accommodation was one of the reasons Justice Samuel Alito cited to justify his Hobby Lobby decision:

Under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the government has to show it has pursued the least restrictive means to accomplish its goal. Alito claimed that because the nonprofit accommodation exists, that means the government has other ways to get women access to contraception that respects religious liberty. Yet only a few days later, he ruled that the nonprofit accommodation – again, signing a form – is also a violation of religious liberty.

Yep, that means that the often trotted out example of the Little Sisters of the Poor (with a name like that, how could anyone deny them anything?) can refuse to even sign a damn sheet of paper saying they want a waiver for providing birth control because: religion.

To recap: Corporations are people with religious beliefs. Their beliefs trump women's beliefs, women's rights under the law and women's health. Women can be discriminated against and have no rights against discrimination under the Constitution. And, it's perfectly fine for Supreme Court justices to lie in their rulings.